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“Yeah, you don’t seem like someone who likes rules.”
“Rules are for the unimaginative. I got tired of playing by the rules of others.”
His words held a story he didn’t tell. It was easy to spot it between the syllables, in the way he slowed slightly to speak, a pain there.
What had happened?
Not like he’d answer me. Grant seemed as close-lipped as every other supernatural I knew. They liked their secrets, liked keeping them close to their chest.
Then again, who could blame them? My biggest screw-up could only follow me for eighty years or so. I’d say one hundred, but with all I’d drunk in my twenties, I was sure I’d cut off a decade or two. A supernatural, though, might have to live with those unfortunate things for centuries, even millennia.
Who wanted to be reminded of their fuck-ups for two thousand years?
As soon as everyone forgot, I could totally understand never bringing it up again.
They might not be able to die, but they seemed determined to bury the parts of their past they didn’t like.
Grant walked beside me, matching my stride. I could have taken a rideshare back home, but something about walking the streets had always made me feel better. It gave me time to think through the bullshit that rattled in my head, to work it out as I put one foot in front of the other.
Of course, I usually didn’t have a mage keeping pace beside me.
Still, no matter how much I tried, how I worked to understand what had happened, I couldn’t come to any conclusion. It eluded me.
Where was I even supposed to go from here?
Was there a point in tracking down Olin? In speaking to Paul? If people’s souls were disappearing in other ways, then the supernaturals couldn’t have been behind it, right?
Sowhatthe hell was I supposed to do?
I didn’t come to an answer—wasn’t that the way of things for me?—before a dark growl came from behind me.
I turned to find two black eyes catching the light of a neon sign down the street, making them almost red, and a face I’d never forget.
Olin, and he didn’t look all that happy to see me…
I had thought Kase was scary. I had thought Lord Colter was scary.
It turned out I knew shit about scary…
Olin’s eyes were entirely black, the white gone. Something dark ran up my spine, similar to the shadow from Rachel’s memories but far weaker.
Did that mean whatever that was still controlled him?
It had to, given the eyes, right?
Of course, the snarling vampire a few feet away should probably have had all my attention.
I went for the sharp rod in my purse, because whether or not he was under the influence of someone else, I certainly wasn’t going to just roll over and let him kill me.
And his face said he planned to do exactly that.
He rushed forward, his speed astounding, but before he reached me, something flung him back.
Grant muttered softly beside me—spells, I realized—with his hand held out before him. I’d forgotten he was even there, but it seemed Grant was a more useful protector than I’d given him credit for.
He’d trapped Olin against the wall, pinned by the same sort of magic Grant had used on me.
Except, when he’d done it to me, it hadn’t hurt. The expression on Olin’s face said it wasn’t so pleasant for him.
